Tag Archives: year

Now is not the time to detail my profound love for the number 7 or describe the source of my appreciation for all its mystical power. Predictably and graciously each month, however, the 7th rolls around like clockwork, for indeed it is. Understanding this to be the first 7th of the new year, it deserves some recognition and added celebration.

I have been resident in Lesotho and working with TTL for exactly one month. Today I received my Lesotho residence permit. Like most visa scenarios, this was a time-consuming affair – though not as cumbersome as my Ghana visa extensions… Today I celebrate residency!

Perhaps it is cliché to be grateful for the chance at a new beginning and a year ahead with blank pages aplenty. Fortunately this year has so much potential to be phenomenal, thereby overriding any categorization as ‘cliché.’ Today I celebrate plans fulfilled, opportunities knocking, and dreams to be realized.

Students dancing at the inauguration of six new classrooms at Adaklu Hli Have

Pencils of Promise in Ghana turned one year old! It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here for half of the full lifespan of this organization, but I have loved watching it grow.

When I arrived in April, PoP Ghana had recently broken ground on its sixth and seventh schools. Today, an impressive 10 additional schools are under construction, and 8 have been completed – now in use by a few hundred preschool and primary students. Hilda and I researched and launched the first scholarship program, thanks to which 47 students can now attend junior secondary school.

Freeman and Anthony have plans to break ground on another 7 schools by the year’s end, and the teacher training program will finally begin in January 2014.